


Abandonned Whumptober Drabbles

by rjn



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: BAMF Natasha Romanov, Clint Barton Needs a Hug, Hurt Clint Barton, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Protective Natasha Romanov, Tony Stark Has A Heart, Whumptober 2018
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-10-30
Updated: 2018-10-30
Packaged: 2019-08-09 19:40:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16456064
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rjn/pseuds/rjn
Summary: I had good intentions of completing every second whumptober prompts with Clint Barton whump, but got sidetracked by another project, so I will post some of the ones I finished here.





	1. 1 - Stabbed

1 – Stabbed

 

This is Barton’s thing.

Clint is the one who is good at the whole field nurse comforting deal. All gentle hands and reassuring calm. He has a good nature for handling badly injured people. Probably a _knows from experience_ thing.

Natasha has been on enough otherwise all-dude ops to know when they look to her after things go to shit, it’s some kind of proto-male sexist bullshit about mothering. She usually scowls it away until one of the other bros patches up his teammate and holds his hand. They are all better off if Nat can keep her eyes on mission objectives and exfil strategy.

But this is Clint. Rattling around in the back of a jeep trundling down a mountain, knife sticking out of his leg, another stab wound somewhere around his armpit. And while normally Barton himself is the one with careful touches and calming words and more medical knowledge than you’d expect from a guy who considers lettuce on a burger to be health food, Natasha is trying to be the thing for Clint.

“We’re almost there. Two miles to pavement.”

Another thirty to decent medical help, but he knows it already. If enough oxygen is getting to his brain.

“Get it out,” he pleads.

Natasha very nearly smothers his mouth with her hands in some silencing instinct that comes to her instead of anything passing for comforting. This is really not her strong suit.

“Just hold on. One mile to pavement.”

She takes for granted he is still thinking clearly enough to understand that the smoother road will mean less pain for the whole knife-in-leg situation. She considers explaining the circumstances to him, in case he hadn’t noticed the style of knife, or didn’t recall that its design does more damage ripping back out of the body, or maybe he hasn’t seen how thoroughly his leg is actually skewered. But Clint whimpers weakly and she decides he knows all he needs to know for now.

Clint’s bloodied hands stretch down for his leg as if to pull the knife himself, but he can’t muster up the strength or coordination and Nat grabs his hands up in hers and holds on. She frowns at the strangeness and vulnerability of the gesture. She really should keep her hands free. It’s bad enough Clint is essentially laying in her lap.

“Please get it out!” A sort of panicked look passes over his face, terrified eyes, but then he moans and faints out cold and Natasha is oddly relieved. And then she has an even more confusing reaction, bending herself down awkwardly and brushing her lips at his brow making a softly murmured noise like she’s heard people do to babies and puppies. In her mind she imagines a Barton not suffering blood loss scrunching up his face at this. _Ew, feelings_ , he would say, but then smile at her with more intimacy than any kiss could ever offer. Knife-leg bloodloss Clint just whines a little and remains unconscious.

This is supposed to be Barton’s thing.

 


	2. 11 - Hypothermia

11 – Hypothermia

The thing that flies off with Hawkeye is a Pterodactyl, if Pterodactyls could be shimmering iridescent creatures flickering on and off like a glitching hologram. It’s the glitching that really concerns Steve, and his concerns prove well-founded, when, after a slightly longer flash “off” of the creature causes the thing to drop its unwilling passenger into the Hudson. In January.

Steve knows everyone’s positions well enough that he doesn’t even glance around for help, just runs to grab the nearest sky dino and hitches a ride, releasing his grip and diving close to where he saw Hawkeye dropped and spiralling into the icy water.

“Think warm thoughts, Barton,” he says, under his breath more than into the comms.

It’s a slower rescue than he’d like, and by the time he has Clint’s head above water, and Tony has scooped them up and dropped them on solid ground, Steve can’t get any kind of response from Hawkeye.

“Iron Man. Need evac.”

Tony, hovering nearby until Clint’s status is known, coasts into his feet first landing that always strikes Steve as awkward and stiff, no matter how flawlessly Tony executes it.

“Will today’s Barton evacuation be of the medical variety?”

He feels terrible about the glib manner he speaks before the terrified look on Steve’s face even registers. Steve pulls Clint into his lap in a move that suggests more than usual closeness. Tony’s heart goes into his throat, recalling the sort of tentative friendship he’d witnessed the last few months, as Clint seemingly becomes closer to something like Steve’s modern world Bucky. Simple pleasures for simple minds, Tony has teased them, Steve enjoying the hell out of some movie special effects while Clint enthuses about the movie theatre popcorn machine in Tony’s home theatre room.

“He’s frozen,” Steve says “I can’t tell if he… fuck.”

The helpless tone snaps Tony out of his sarcastic shell and he flips up the mask of his suit.

“I’ve got a thing,” he blurts out.

Steve is still wrestling with Hawkeye’s wet tac-jacket, and only shoots a millisecond glance at Tony.

“An infrared thing…” he starts to explain at Steve’s confused, but now a shade closer to hopeful, face.

“Just move, Cap. I can help him.”

Steve lays Clint down gently and scrambles backwards. Two arrays shoot from Tony’s gauntlet but instead of the crisp white-blue of a repulsor blast, a slow orange glow tracks over Clint’s prone form.

Steve wants to blurt something out, maybe from habit, about Tony’s recklessness, and untested tech, and not thinking things through. Is shock from reheating a hypothermic person too fast a thing that happens? Steve’s mind is blank. Skin on skin contact and fire-starting and sleeping bags and a bunch of other boy scout images have flooded his brain, but already the blueish tint is gone from Clint’s skin and his face has taken on a kind of febrile glow. He moves, finally, and Steve swoops back in to hold him so he’s not bent back awkwardly over his somehow still in place quiver.

Clint turns his face into Steve’s chest and breathes something Steve can’t immediately make out.

“Are you with us, Hawkeye?” Tony, with a rare note of uncertainty in his voice.

“French fries,” Clint mumbles hoarsely.

“Are you…. What is he saying,” Tony looks to Steve’s confused face. “Is he hungry?”

Steve holds Clint’s head back as far as he’s willing to let cold air between them and watches his mouth.

“Heat lamp… thing,” Clint muses wearily. “French fries?”

“I think we’re too late,” Tony says solemnly. “He freezer burnt his brain.”

Steve smiles, though, and hugs Clint as roughly as he dares.

“Warm thoughts,” Steve says through a breaking smile. “I told him to think warm thoughts”

Tony laughs. “Oh, buddy, we’re gonna get you a sauna filled with French fries. And cheese burgers. Maybe not milkshakes. Or, is there a thing that’s warm but, like, milkshakey? I think there’s like a Burger King sauna in Finland? We’ll make that, but without milkshakes.”

Clint opens his mouth to respond, but he’s wracked by violent shivers. That triggers something from Steve’s boy scout brain, that shivering is good, or at least shivering is not as bad as not shivering, and he takes the first deep breath he’s managed since the hologram dinosaur grabbed Clint.


End file.
